Expected level of XP by end of game?

Remove all ads!

I've been playing Icewind Dale II and I think I'm going to go backwards and play Icewind Dale next. I don't want to spoil myself much, but I would like to know about how much XP you get at the end of one normal mode game.

This is just for party-planning purposes; I don't want to try a big dual class and end up not having enough XP to make it past the original level!

Thanks!

 

If you play the intended way at normal difficulty you should have at the end (rough guess):

Without expansions: 6,600,000 XP
With HoW: 12,500,000 XP
With HoW and TotL: 15,000,000 XP

The XP are divided evenly among your party members. So everyone will have about 2,500,000 at the end if you play a 6 character party with all expansions. You need pure or dualclassed clerics,rangers and druids to be able to cast level 7 spells then.

If you play without HoW installed you get less XP if you choose an easier level.
If you play with HoW installed you get twice as many XP for everything if you choose "very easy" or "very hard" difficulty which will make your characters level very fast later and make the game far easier.
There's also the possibility to get unlimited XP by fighting endlessly respawning monsters if you really want to do this.

 

Sorry to revive this old thread, but why clutter the board with a new message to clarify an old topic?

How much XP can one get on insane difficulty setting in HoF mode (IWD + How + TotL)?

I read somewhere else that one could get about 80M XP total (assuming no XP farming). Is that right?

Thanks!

 

I think Insane doubles XP. The numbers are guesses though, because you can randomly run into monsters if you try sleeping anywhere other than an Inn.

 

So the XP bonus is the same for very hard as insane? Or is it another double (for a quadruple effect)?

Or do I get more monsters too on insane?

It would be sad to find out that my expectations to take all my characters to level 30 by the end of all the expansions won't be met....

 

Hards increases XP gain by 50% (so you get 1.5x the XP you would on normal) and Insane double it. I've played through the whole thing on Insane, but everyone in my party except for the bard was multiclassed. I don't remember which classes hit level 30 (the bard did, obviously) but if you play single-class characters I think most of them will (except maybe the mage)

 

My estimation is that you'll have slightly less than 60,000,000 XP at the end of HoF mode.

 

Whew! Thanks K! That's just about enough. I think I need about 55.6M XP to reach 30s in all classes (inc MCs) for my party. This assumes that XP gets redistributed to other party members once a party member is maxed. The number will get bigger otherwise (a lot of XP would be wasted going to a 30th level bard)....

Paladin
Bard
MC Ranger/Cleric
MC Fighter/Thief
MC Fighter/Druid
MC Cleric/Mage

If no XP would get redistributed, then I have to take the highest class at 30 (that's a mage at 7.5M XP) and multiply by 2 since he's MC, that's 15M then multiply by 6, that's 90M XP total.

Next highest is the half-ranger at 6.6M XP. By same calculations, that's 79.2M XP total. damn

Next highest is half-fighter at 5.5M XP => 66M XP total. Nope

Next highest is half-druid at 5.175M XP => 62.1M XP total. Not quite

So it's down to the half-clerics at 4.95M XP => 59.4 XP total.

The only classes that will be level 30 are:
- the Paladin
- the Bard
- the Cleric parts of the R/C and C/M, and
- the Thief part of the F/T

The F/D won't be maxed in either of her classes ....

 

What insane difficulty in HoF mode? HoF is the highest level of difficulty not a mode.

 

Sorry to disappoint you, but XP isn't redistributed once a party member is maxed. So I guess you'll only have bard and thief at level 30 at the end.

 

Darn, well if there is a good area for XP farming near the end, please let me know, and I may have to drop my standards.

 

Sure there is. The cave entrance to Upper Dorn's Deep has a daily respawn feature. Plenty of ettins to kill in there.

 

I took a party of four around. The way I did it was to go back to Kuldahar before entering Lower Dorn's Deep and then go to Lonelywood from there. I then did a detour to TOLM just after the glacier, before returning to Lonelywood to start the Sea of Moving Ice and final showdown with the dragon. Then I returned to Kuldahar, did Lower Dorn's Deep and then the end of the original campaign.
I think this is the only way to do all three without starting the expansion seperately (be warned that if you complete HOW you can't go back to Lonelywood and do TOLM in the same game as it dumps you straight back to Kuldahar and the barbarian guy has left his house - I found this out to my cost and had to reload an earlier save).
Having said that, if you do it this way, it does make the end boss of the original campaign stupidly easy. My four (fighter, paladin, fighter/thief and cleric/mage) made mincemeat of him in a very short time.

 

I'm doing a HoF mode from the start game, on insane difficulty. I do NOT expect my multiclassed characters to max their levels out, but so what? They're still really powerful!

Human Paladin
Half Elf Cleric/Ranger
Half Elf Fighter/Druid
Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief
Gnome Fighter/Illusionist
Half-Elf Bard

I guess I could have replaced the F/D with a dual classed F9>D, and max out Druid levels, but I really don't think it's worth it. If the higher levels are anything like BGII, then after level 20 you really won't gain too much anyway.

 

Good points. I won't sweat it. The main thing I will miss is the ability to cast 3 more 9th level mage spells, and 2 more lvl 1-7 spells. The Ranger won't be able to cast level 6 druidic spells.

Here's the breakdown on number of spells memorizable (assuming each character gets 10M XP to split among his/her classes).

Mage lvl 23 vs 30: 3 vs 6 @ lvl 9, 5 vs 6 @ lvl 8, 5 vs 7 @ lvls 1-7
Ranger lvl 24 vs 30: 0 vs 1 @ lvl 6, 1 vs 3 @ lvl 5, 3 vs 5 @ lvl 4, 4 vs 5 @ lvls 1-3
Druid lvl 29 vs 30: 7 vs 8 @ lvl 7

I must really be bored

 

Again this phrase. Why is it so hard to understand that there is no other difficulty while playing HoF? Unlike IWD2, you have to keep the configuration set to HoF if you want to play it. In IWD2, if you start a game with HoF on, then the savegame will remain in HoF, even if you changed the configuration to a normal difficulty.

 

I think some people just confuse an HOF game with an HOW game...but still...HOF is the difficulty ABOVE insane difficulty...

 

I'm pretty sure I've gotten different XP amounts based on what difficulty is set BEFORE choosing HoF mode. Check it out.

 

Is it? Go to configuration and set the game to Heart of Fury. It goes automatically to insane and once it is set, you can't remove the difficulty slide even when you enter the game. The only way to move the slide is to uncheck the Heart of Fury option, but in that case, you are playing on insane difficulty at best.

 

That is true. You are forced to play on insane difficulty once you turn HoF mode on.